Friday, July 31, 2009

At last it can be told...

So, if you look at the custom cylinder, you'll notice it has a third case transfer. It also lacks a piston-port intake. This is because I made the cylinder only compatible with a case-inducted motor. The ZA50 motor pictured here has the reed-block welded to it already. It uses a malossi VL6 reed, usually found on smallframe vespa scooters and certain moped cylinders. (Gilardoni Puch) I actually cut the two huge chunks that became the reed block out of a single piece of aluminum by hand with a hack-saw.

That took F O R E V E R...

The block is pitched to the flywheel side, to create proper clearance for the rear-facing carburetor. My buddy Ratboy did most of the welding, alot of which was pretty difficult, in exchange for a six-pack of cold ones. Rat works at one of the coolest places in the world, and gets to horse around on stuff like the #2 & #3 LeMans winning Ford GT40's from 1969, Amphicars, Nazi Staff Mercedes', Isettas, $300,000 Porsches, Loti, Ferraris etc..etc..

I've actually had this laying around for over a year, but without the custom cylinder it was made for, it didn't make much sense to share. Some of the gross welding on the case transfers I did myself, and I'll probably end up fixing before the cylinder goes on. I'm getting a sense that this motor, while absurdly customized and DIY, isn't going to win any beauty pageants.

5 comments:

Philip Patrie said...

It wins the beauty contest of my heart!

TN said...

gnarly!

BRANDON said...

duuude. do you have any pictures of the mold before the pour? i want to know MORE. also, what are you doing about the cylinder wall? chrome coating? how expensive? ever think about using cast iron sleeves then pressing into an aluminum block?

WEEEE

Josh said...

After the cylinder has been machined, expect a pretty thorough blog post on the whole affair from start to finish. But I'll tell you that I started with a cast-iron kymco jug, that I cut my ports into and then built the mold around that, casting aluminum on top of the cast iron, copying the process toyota uses for their truck engines.

Anonymous said...

I WANT MORE UPDATES!